Bluebell Hunt

In Cork two weekends in a row (a rare treat) and the promise was made to seek out some bluebells to photograph. Currabinny woods has nealy always been a good spot, something I believe I pointed out on the morning we were setting out to go and take some photos. Without knowing I’d already jinxed the operation completely. Although there were bluebells, there was nowhere near the amount I’ve seen in previous years. So instead, I contented myself with using the remaining frames on the roll of God knows what that was in the A-1 while Julie tried to make the most of it.

When the film counter rolled past 24 with no sign of it stopping, I imagined that the loaded film (which had been in the camera for months by now) was a lovely roll of black & white. Just the ticket for bluebell photography. So I pretty much rattled off the remainder of the roll. I shot the sky, trees, the ground, Julie, grass, more sky. You get the idea. Having rewound the completed roll, it was a nice surprise to open the camera and find a 36 exposure roll of ‘that expired film’ staring back at me.

My distaste for scanning is intact and as such, expect to see spots, lines, hairs and other foreign bodies lurking in the scanned negatives above. It’s only the very special photos these days that get the full spit polish in lightroom. Again the DSLR sat in the bag and the above is a product of my two (and only) gorgeous lenses for the A-1; the 50 ƒ1.8 and the 135 ƒ2. There is a shopping list but it’s better not to explore that too much in case my bank balance gets wind of it and goes into hiding. Let’s just leave it by saying there’s a couple of ƒ1.2’s on there. Or, if I was feeling extra flush, maybe one of those ƒ0.95’s you don’t really see many of anymore.

I could go on and spitball at length about how my love of the FD lenses has led me onto the notion of selling an unused EF lenses and buying a Sony NEX-5N but then I’d just be waffling. And that wouldn’t be like me…